1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an apparatus for taking photograph with monitoring system which is suitable for taking a photograph of person at photo studio, wedding hall, or the like.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In the case of taking a photograph which is impossible to retake, for instance, a photograph on wedding, it is an ordinary way to take two or more photographs and choose the best one among them after development. In this way, however, there is not always satisfactory one in such photographs.
For this reason, in some of photo studios, a monitor camera such as a still video camera or an instant camera is provided near the primary camera for taking an objective photograph. The monitor camera is synchronized with the primary camera so as to take a picture of an object at the same time when an objective photograph is taken with the primary camera. Therefore, the person's appearance at the moment of taking the objective photograph can be checked through the picture by the monitor camera on the spot. Especially, in the case that the object is person, a failure caused by his closed eyes on the objective photograph is avoidable.
In that case, however, there is a parallax between the photograph taken by the primary camera and the picture by the monitor camera because of the distance between the lenses of two cameras. In many cases, since a camera using a large size film such as 5.times.7" or 8.times.10" is employed as the primary camera, such a parallax becomes considerably large because of the relatively large size body of the primary camera. Particularly in the case that a photograph of persons in ranks is taken, a person in a rear rank may be covered by a person in a front rank on the objective photograph even if he in the rear rank is in sight on the picture by the monitor camera. To the contrary, there is a case that, even if he is in sight on the objective photograph, he is out of sight on the picture by the monitor camera so it is impossible to check how he appears.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,303,322 discloses an electronic image pick-up device for a single-lens reflex camera having an interchangeable finder. In this prior art, the object image light entered through the objective lens of a camera and reflected upward by a reflex mirror is converted into a picture signal through a solid state image sensor. The pictur signal is used for displaying an object image on liquid crystal display elements, or it is sent to a video tape recorder for recording the object image. When the release button of the camera is depressed, the reflex mirror is flipped upward like that in an ordinary single-lens reflex camera so that the object image light through the objective lens reached to the surface of a film and expose it. Accordingly, there is no parallax between the image on the photographic film and the image displayed on the liquid crystal display elements or recorded in the video tape recoder.
In this prior art, however, because the reflex mirror is in the flipped up position when the camera is performing an exposure operation, any part of the object image light from the objective lens is not introduced to the solid state image sensor. This means that the object image can not be monitored during the exposure operation. In order to overcome this defect, the solid state image sensor of this prior art produces a picture signal of the object image which is the same as the picture signal provided just before the beginning of the exposure operation, and the object image is continuously displayed or recorded during the exposure operation. In that case, however, the object image displayed during the exposure is not real. Thus, it is impossible to check the object's look at the moment of taking an objective photograph through such an object image displayed.
Moreover, a camera to which the prior art device is applied must have a special construction such that its finder portion is detachable. Therefore, it is hard to apply the prior art device to an ordinary camera currently used at photo studio or the like.